January 22, 2018

JORDAN + ERIC | Westchester Country Club | Rye, New York | June 2017

January 22, 2018/ Ashley Douglass

This wedding appeared in the pages of The Knot in January 2018, on Inside Weddings, inside Westport Magazine, on Carats & Cake, Style Me Pretty and Westchester/Hudson Valley Wedding Magazine.

This wedding was a class act filled with creativity and smart choices! We LOVE the vendors we love and cannot say enough about how hard they worked with us on this wedding to make everything come together on point. And the spirit and love at this wedding equaled its beauty!

As most wedding decor, we started off with an inspiration board that came out of Ashley Douglass's first conversation with the beautiful and fun Bride Jordan. We both shared our love for home design, kitchens in particular, marble, mixed metals and pillows. You can see a screenshot of a portion of the first design inspiration board Ashley Douglass sent on to Jordan below. As you can see the wedding in the end did reflect some of these initial ideas, which is not always the case.

RACHEL + DAVID | Ritz Carlton, Westchester, New York

August 09, 2017/ Ashley Douglass

Every wedding is different as every family is different, let alone each couple and venue. Planning a wedding for a couple that has been together for over a decade has its own special characteristics too. Also, this is a second marriage for them both. The inclusion of children became most important, and sweet, and honoring both family members and friends that have been by their side through thick and thin, for decades.

While most couples today want their ceremony to be over as soon as possible, it’s the ceremony we talked about most while planning this wedding. For one, limiting the bridal party was hard! Does the Bride and Groom keep it to friends or to family because having them both was just too many people! In the end we got very creative which made for a more personal, goose bump worthy ceremony.

First in the processional came the Bride’s closest friends, some of which have become the Groom’s as well. These friends were coined “the flower friends”. They walked first and to assigned seats, which lined the ceremony aisle. Once they got to their assigned seats, they stood by their chair until it was time for them to sit. In their hands they carried a portion of Rachel’s bridal bouquet. Then came her closer family members - her niece, the Groom’s niece, siblings and then last, the Bride’s two daughters, all of which stood under the Chuppha with the Bride and Groom, and Rabbi. Rachel then walked the aisle by herself making her way from one flower friend to the next, building her bridal bouquet as she walked. Each piece was wrapped in ribbon with a heavy duty magnet inside to help keep the pieces together. Once she got to the Chuppha her long time friend and mentor, who sat in the front row, met her by the Chuppha. This friend has been in her life since they met at Summer camp when he was just a few years older and her CIT - “Counselor in training” for those of you who never went to camp! He helped her tie the pieces of her bouquet into one, and lifted her veil over her face as a father would, and helped her walk up to the Chuppha to meet her Groom. It was a tear jerker to say the least. Guests hummed to Do Di Lee along with the musicians.

When it came to design, she would use the words such as lush, feminine and romantic. While she loved the pictures she accumulated that were more traditional for a ballroom or hotel setting, she also loved more modern weddings and couldn’t really make up her mind what direction she wanted to move. In the end she felt if she went too modern then she may regret it later on, so the sense of modern was minimal, such as chairs we chose. This is a common conversation that comes up with wedding gowns more often but for venue design as well. If I really express myself and how I feel today, will I regret not having been more traditional in design twenty years from now? For her the answer was yes.

The venue was chosen for a host of reasons and in the end, the main ingredient they wanted in a venue, which was to be by the ocean, was not possible. The couple resides in Westchester and needed the venue to be rather local to accommodate all the people they hoped to attend - more important than the ocean. Having hotel accommodations on-site to make the weekend easy for all far away family members, many of which have children, and to be close to the city, close to LaGuardia and close to their home. The Ritz in Westchester is located near metro north and there is another hotel that is brand new as of 2016 right around the corner for those that wanted to spend a bit less on accommodations. The weekend started with dinner at a near by restaurant and ended on Sunday with guests being shuttled to the couples brand new home in nearby Rye, New York - something that was very important to them both.

We got lucky that day on traffic. As sometimes is the case we watched WAZE like a hawk and all roads were clear, so the couple, along with their fabulous photographer we love so much, Roey Yohair, traveled to Greenwich to get in some waterfront photos. Then on the way back they also managed to take a quick pit stop at their home in Rye, NY to include Ackerman, their family dog in the festivities. Then back to the Ritz in time for the Ketubah signing and ceremony. All roads where clear and gosh are we thankful. The risk was worth the reward said the bride and I was happy to oblige as long we the risks were understood. Thank you to the traffic gods!

Thank you to all the vendors that made this wedding exactly what the couple wanted it to be! They waited a awful long time for this day to come and they couldn’t have been more thrilled. I will never forget the look at Rachel’s face when she entered the reception room during cocktail hour and her jaw fell. She screamed, “My white dance floor, my big white dance floor” and began to dance as the band, The Carlos Estrella Band, warmed up. They were fabulous by the way and nailed the very much rehearsed first dance the couple had prepared with them for weeks beforehand.

Photography below by Roey Yohair

Architectural designer's launch party | New Canaan, CT | July 2017

August 01, 2017/ Ashley Douglass

We could not have been more excited to have been hired to plan and design this fabulous launch party for the Maiden Lane Group in tandem with them hosting an open house for one of their pristine and perfectly restored New Canaan, Connecticut homes.

The home was designed with such thoughtfulness and detail; the lighting fixtures, the fabric wall paper, the flooring, the array of paint colors, tiles, knobs, built-in book cases and other nooks - total perfection. You always want to work with what is already there at a venue, or in this case a home, and build from there. This is not the time to reinvent the wheel, just make it better and more WOW for a party's sake! Lucky me, the owner of The Maiden Lane Group also loves grey, blue, silver, brass, coper and white as much as I do! Also, lucky for us he has wonderful taste and was all for pushing the button to make the design, and the party's flow, more perfect. Modern with a tad of hollywood regency were in order and, in true OCD fashion, we worried about guests clashing with the decor. We knew pretty fast the guest count was going to be high so we made the invite to be an All White party. Listen to me - you can never go wrong with an all white party and in July no less! White always looks right!

Inside the home and on display, and for sale at the open house tours, were one-of-a-kind paintings by renowned and local artist Paul Balmer. We've had real art in a tent before so the opportunity jumped out at Ashley when she first entered the home and saw most all of the works were from the same artist. Yes, rain plans were in place and people on hand - no art was put in danger! Thank you to Paul Balmer for being so generous and accepting of the offer, and entrusting us with your beautiful canvases.

Thank you to the fabulous team that helped bring our vision together - Social Decor, Belle Fleur, Laurence Craig Catering, Okamoto Studio, Luxe Event Rentals, American Furniture Rentals, Party Rental LTD and Greenwich Tent Co. Huge Kuddos to Katie Fischer Design for bringing everything together with The Maiden Lane Group's new branding, website and also the invitation, and other day of paper details. This invitation was just exquisite! And a shout out to Ryan Oak Productions for their jaw dropping mentalist and Jarrell Entertainment for spinning the tunes!

Please scroll the beautiful photos captured by Melani Lust Photography!

Extra Set of Hands, By Julia D'Agostino

August 19, 2016/ ashley

In just a few short weeks our Summer Intern Julia D'Agostino goes back to complete her BFA in Photography and Journalism from Loyola University Maryland. Below is her Summer's end blog, that is enough to make me cry! She is always welcomed back, and speaking of which, we hope to see her still, virtually, this Winter season. Without further adieu.... "Extra Set of Hands"

November 17, 2015

It's a new day, well almost!

November 17, 2015/ ashley

Congratulations to us and a huge THANK YOU to Katie Fischer Design for helping us to create the perfect new logo! We can't wait for the excited road ahead while the present moment is pretty awesome as well!

Luxury Destination Wedding Planning

JORDAN + ERIC | Westchester Country Club | Rye, New York | June 2017

Categories

RACHEL + DAVID | Ritz Carlton, Westchester, New York

Categories

Architectural designer's launch party | New Canaan, CT | July 2017

Categories

Extra Set of Hands, By Julia D'Agostino

It's a new day, well almost!

Ashley Douglass Events